Tactical Gear Video: The El Presidente Drill

This article is an excerpt from the May 2011 Tactical Gear iPad Edition. Click here to download to your iPad for Free

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Many of you are thinking, “Not another El Presidente story.”

Surrender or starting position. This can be with the targets to the rear or either side depending on which turn you are practicing. Remember you don’t have to be a cooperative captive. I am starting my crouch to make the turn. It should look to the bad guy that I am being submissive and giving up.

Do you know the El Presidente drill? The standard drill as I learned it was to stand with your back to three targets that are side-by-side about 10 yards away with six rounds in the gun and six rounds in a spare magazine where you normally carry it.

With your hands up, in the surrender position, turn and face the targets, draw and fire the weapon with two shots on each target, drop the empty mag, reload and again put two rounds on each target. You can chose to go back the way you came or start on the same target you started with the first time.

I shot El Presidente the first time more than 25 years ago. And since that time there has been much criticism leveled against this particular training sequence.

This is largely because it is not a sound tactic to stand off against armed assailants and hope you can put four rounds into each one before you get killed. Someone even did a force-on-force evaluation on how effective it would be to take on three armed opponents standing face-to-face.

Bringing the hands together for a solid two handed grip ans the gun heads to the target. Keep your one eye on the target and one ont the front sight as it comes up to a perfect sight picture.

The consensus, was you no matter how fast you are, the best is a draw or you would lose. Duh!

The point of this training exercise is not that you actually think you can win such a fight. The point is to teach you how to handle the weapon and the reloads.

El Pres is about drawing and presenting the pistol, firing double taps at multiple targets and performing a speed reload. These are very important things to master in handling a gun for defensive purposes.

It is like a kata that has put together several functions in one drill. The karate man doesn’t expect to get attacked in the same order that he mastered his moves, but learns a kata to help him learn and master each move.

The mind can employ the moves as needed to the situation but first you have to master the moves. The same with the El Presidente.